A language abstraction layer for relational DBMS

Current database definition techniques tend to be either purely language based or purely graphical. There is little or no integration between the two. This places artificial limits on the environment that developers must work in; ideally, they should be able to switch paradigms as the need arises. This lack of integration also causes problems with database reengineering. The paper describes an architecture for a relational abstraction layer, which isolates the front end "dialect" used from the underlying relational implementation. This allows tighter integration between different database definition techniques.